Thanks to Gamespot
SAN FRANCISCO--Imagine a three-dimensional avatar-based socializing sim like Second Life. Now cross it with the online gaming and matchmaking features of Xbox Live. Leaven with dynamic streaming in-game advertising a la Massive, throw in some Pogo.com-esque casual gaming, and add a dash of Sneak King-like merchandising. Heat, stir, let cool, serve, and--voila--you've got Home, the new online service for the PlayStation 3.

PS3 phone home Check out the first footage of Sony's new online service.
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Following a flurry of rumors, Sony officially opened Home's doors at a secretive, invite-only event on Tuesday evening at a nightclub near the base of the Bay Bridge. Following the requisite signing of nondisclosure agreements and plying of attendees with high-end nibbles and libations, Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison took the stage to give a preview of the keynote speech he would deliver the following morning at the 2007 Game Developers Conference.

Using a PowerPoint-like slide show via the PS3's cross-media bar, Harrison outlined the concept behind Home, which he called "Game 3.0." As the executive himself freely admitted, the concept is a riff on Web 2.0, the term applied to the new, more interactive and customer-focused services and sites like Pandora, YouTube, and Flickr.

And you thought people were fake in LA...
All the aforementioned sites embrace the concept of what Harrison calls "emergence entertainment," allowing users to upload their own content. When it launches this fall, Home will offer similar functionality to PlayStation 3 users. However, instead of a stripped-down interface, the service will feature a detailed three-dimensional environment with graphics and physics on par with many next-gen games.

"No, I said part it on the left, you fool!"
Harrison first showed off Home's slick look by showing "the lobby," one of the public forums where PlayStation 3 users can meet and greet each other. Looking like a sleek building out of pre-Cylon-nuclear-holocaust Battlestar Galactica, the lobby was filled with avatars sporting hip hairdos and euro-chic wardrobes. The avatars can communicate on several levels: simple emotion animations (waving, dancing) like those in World of Warcraft, text chat via keyboard or predictive text, voice chat, and video chat.

Just like a real bowling alley, minus the foot funk.
Besides the lobby, Home will offer a host of other public spaces with a variety of activities. To demonstrate, Harrison had a coworker jaw with a colleague in Europe, then saunter through a fully rendered entertainment complex with bowling lanes, pool tables, and realistic old-school arcade machines like those in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The machines will offer visitors casual games, with a Choplifter-esque mockup being used for illustration purposes.

Another public space Harrison visited was a movie theater, with posters of and trailers for real-world films. Visitors to the virtual cinema can watch the previews playing on monitors in the lobby or enter actual theaters, potentially to watch full-length films streamed on screens.

Unfortunately for Thad, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy has been canceled for quite some time.
Harrison also showed how a Home user could watch video in his virtual abode. Each Home user will receive a basic apartment free of charge and can invite their friends over to their abodes to socialize in a more intimate setting. Harrison said Home apartments can also be used as smaller-scale lobbies for close-knit gaming groups, and even touted them as potential clan headquarters. Users will also be able to host virtual parties in apartments where they can DJ using music files streaming from their PS3 hard drives.

The riffraff were gently ushered to the back patio, out of the VIPs' sight.
Home apartments can be customized with both abstract patterns and game themes; heart wallpaper and Resistance: Fall of Man-branded posters were offered up to the briefing audience as examples. Said virtual abodes can also be filled with designer furniture that can be moved, thrown, or otherwise dislodged with realistic physics. Users can also put picture frames on the wall, to which they can upload any image from their PS3 hard drive. To show the ease of this process, Harrison snapped a shot of the crowd and uploaded it into a frame on the apartment wall within seconds.

Well, this lobby seems tailor-made for a major publisher of golf, soccer, boxing, and baskeball games. (Cough, cough.)
Home users can also deck out their apartment with a variety of electronics--all Sony-branded, of course. Not only will said electronics look like their real-world counterparts, they will also function like them. To illustrate this fact, Harrison selected a 42-inch Bravia LCD TV and hung it on the wall. He then selected the trailer for Casino Royale and began to stream it to the television. As a comic afterthought, the demonstration avatar then threw the television down his apartment's stairs. The set didn't break, but it bounced realistically, and the trailer's video continued to play without any skipping.

Unlike a real theater, no one will talk on their cell phone during the climax of Children of Men here.
Throughout his presentation, Harrison made a point of saying that the Home function would be a free download which would be accessible from the PS3's XMB. However, the executive left no question that Sony has come up with plenty of revenue streams for Home. The most basic of these are things PS3 users will pay for: Harrison said there will be high-end--and possibly branded--items of clothing which users can purchase for their avatars. He also showed a "luxury" apartment which will have several floors and a lakeside view--and heavily hinted it would not be gratis.

No, you won't throw out your back moving this way.
But while premium content is a no-brainer, Harrison also showed off other, more ingenious ways Sony will glean coin from Home. First of these is in-game advertising. All public spaces and lobbies in Home will have large, dynamically generated virtual video monitors, banners, and billboards hawking various products.

Harrison also showed off a mockup of a whole constellation of public home areas that can be branded to a third-party publisher--or any other company willing to pay the price. He showed off a concept Home area that resembled a cross between a carnival and the EA Sports booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. There, visiting avatars could hit balls at a golf-game-branded driving range, sink three-pointers at hoop stations slathered in basketball game logos, or take out their virtual frustrations on boxing-game-themed foam dummies. Presumably all these features will be made available to publishers--for a price.

Lastly, all Home's menus will be accessed via a virtual PlayStation Portable. The demonstrations Harrison used were very reminiscent of the PDA in Doom 3, with avatars pulling reproductions of the handhelds out of their pockets, sustaining the illusion of a virtual world. However, the population of said realm won't be known until later this year. Currently in a limited closed beta, Home will enter a wider beta in April, with launch set for this fall in the US and Europe.

gtkilla

07-03-07, 21:51

:confused:

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:02

well did you see the vid?

Natey168

07-03-07, 22:07

Which one..?

AmericanAssassin

07-03-07, 22:09

@ 2kool4u: can you summarize what the video says?

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:14

ok the new vid talks about the Playstation 3's "Home"

AmericanAssassin

07-03-07, 22:15

ok the new vid talks about the Playstation 3's "Home"

What about it and what do you mean by home? I really don't like visiting links, so can't you just write details here?

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:19

Home is like that game secound life where you can interact with other people around the world. You can customize your own charecter make your own house where you can store the music, pictures and videos that you have on your ps3. Its only available to people with playstation 3's its like myspace. But better

Dingaling

07-03-07, 22:22

"Playstation Home" is a virtual world that's free for PS3 users and will debut sometime this year. You have a virtual character and you can customise him, make friends, visit friend's houses, customise your own house, have pets, listen to music, play games like pool and go to the cinema within this world. It'll also be the place where game trophies will be displayed. So, it's like a cross between Second Life and the Xbox 360 Achievements.

Hope that helps you AA and the others :).

EDIT: 2kool got there first, darn you :p.

Natey168

07-03-07, 22:24

It looks pretty cool.

AmericanAssassin

07-03-07, 22:24

What's Second Life? Is it a cheap rip off of The Sims? Anyway, that sounds really cool! :D I bet Xbox Live! will copy PS3's efforts.

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:25

lol let me do some copying and pasting.

Dingaling

07-03-07, 22:26

Second Life is basically what I described for Home, LoL. It's sort of an online Sims that you can download for free. I know a few members here have - Justin, Kam and Geck if I remember correctly.

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:27

i have it to. btw article update.
lol @ dingaling. You know kam just sits in her chair day by day lol

Hyper_Crazy

07-03-07, 22:29

Sounds cool, great find, thanks :)

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:30

welcome. I am so happy i have one!!!

2kool4u

07-03-07, 22:56

I put a better article describing home. check it out.

rewak

08-03-07, 00:42

This doesnt make me want a PS3, not even a little bit.

Mad Tony

08-03-07, 07:33

Looks like another stupid Sony fanboy article to me. (Not directed at you 2kool4u :))

interstellardave

08-03-07, 12:34

Well, if it's everything that the article says it is, it'll be a boon for online cyber-affairs--complete with your own little cyber apartment for your illicit get-togethers.

Just an observation.

viper456

08-03-07, 12:53

I didnt read the article but i watched the video and i was very impressed :)

ITs very simular to second life but with uber graphics :D

clexy

08-03-07, 12:55

Acually this make's me not to buy a PS3.

This doesnt make me want a PS3, not even a little bit.

Well, if it's everything that the article says it is, it'll be a boon for online cyber-affairs--complete with your own little cyber apartment for your illicit get-togethers.

Just an observation.

"Your international PS3 match-maker":vlol:
Anyone knows IMVU? Its a 3D chat where you make friends around the globe. Its online , you log there and chat.

Now if I play a console , im surely not interested getting unwated attention from everywhere around the world just to "be friends", id rahter go outside ,then to go to a cinema in a game .

Legend of Lara

08-03-07, 18:37

Sony... You! Are! Great! :D
PS3 is going to rule all!!!!!!!!!

Sin

08-03-07, 18:47

when it is going to release this home?
It is a game that we have to buy? Or it comes with ps3 ?

Mad Tony

08-03-07, 19:04

Sony... You! Are! Great! :D
PS3 is going to rule all!!!!!!!!!:rolleyes: All because of this one thing?

Legend of Lara

08-03-07, 19:08

:rolleyes: All because of this one thing?

STOP MAKING SMARTARSE COMMENTS!!! :mad: Yes, I favour Sony, is there ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT?!? Why don't you go pick on a Microsoft or Nintendo fanboy for a change huh?

2kool4u

09-03-07, 20:46

Looks like another stupid Sony fanboy article to me. (Not directed at you 2kool4u :))

ok. but it isnt. It is official did you see the trailer.
btw i keep thinking of resident evil when i see it.

belter_21

09-03-07, 21:13

the main reason is that sony will support the ps3 for a decade, ms did not support the xbox anything like sony still supports the ps2 - no brainer

Mad Tony

09-03-07, 21:13

STOP MAKING SMARTARSE COMMENTS!!! :mad: Yes, I favour Sony, is there ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT?!? Why don't you go pick on a Microsoft or Nintendo fanboy for a change huh?Firstly, I have no problem with you supporting Sony, I just get fed up with you constantly saying stuff like "PS3 is going to own all!" . Secondly, I don't "pick" on you. And thirdly, I don't "pick" on Nintendo or Microsoft fanboys because I haven't come across any (yet) who just say that the PS3 is going to own or whatever, without giving a good reason.

belter_21

09-03-07, 21:21

360 premium plus hd player is how much? and a ps3 inc. a hd player is how much?

I'm a PC gamer but even I can see the better longer term value ;)

AmericanAssassin

09-03-07, 21:36

I finally watched the video and all I have to say is: Wow! Microsoft will never live up to this! :D (And I'm no fanboy!)

belter_21

09-03-07, 21:41

PS3 = Naughty Dog game :D

Mad Tony

09-03-07, 22:16

PS3 = Naughty Dog game :DWhat a fun game. Let me try one. :D

Gears of War = Xbox 360 game
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess = Nintendo Wii game

belter_21

09-03-07, 22:27

What a fun game. Let me try one. :D

Gears of War = Xbox 360 game
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess = Nintendo Wii game

each console has a good title, gears is good but not great, Zelda TP is awesome...but 'Uncharted Drake's Fortune' on PS3 will be great....then again I'm going to spend £500 on a DX10 graphics card for Crysis on PC. :D

Destro

10-03-07, 00:08

Gears is great when playing multiplayer, it is as good or better then any other multiplayer game made. It uses a cover scheme that no other multiplayer FPS uses, and with intelligent players instead of AI it is pure gold.

Crackdown similarly in multiplayer is brilliant, it is a great game. Even the solo campaign is as addicting as well...anything you can imagine

But, I think the PC will have the greatest games.
It all depends on the games and styles you like.

interstellardave

10-03-07, 16:24

360 premium plus hd player is how much? and a ps3 inc. a hd player is how much?

I'm a PC gamer but even I can see the better longer term value ;)

The better long-term value (movies wise) is for the package whose format (BR or HDDVD) wins the "war". That isn't decided yet. For games alone, the 360 is ahead right now and, logically, may stay ahead in the long run unless the PS3 really can leap-frog it in terms of quality (still highly questionable).

marcocatena

10-03-07, 17:08

AMAZING! Glad ive pre-ordered mine :D

2kool4u

10-03-07, 17:19

PS3=TR8
lol
anyway I JUST SAW A VIDEO CONFRENCE AND WE WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE OUR OWN GAMES!!!

Undoubtedly cool! But misleading to say "make our own games"! Making levels and content for existing games, like this lets you do, is really awesome though--and it's one of the the things that all 3 (sony, ms, nintendo) have put forward as a new direction in gaming. I hope this trend takes hold!

UNDERTAKER

10-03-07, 18:07

Meh! I buy a games console to play good old fashioned games.

Remember the times when a games console was just a games console? I miss those times.

2kool4u

11-03-07, 07:26

Itl be cool to make my own levels and post them on the internet. This is like TRLE.